Vaccines interest among people increasing

More people are rushing to vaccination centres to get Covid-19 vaccine shots across the country, after the large-scale programme resumed on Tuesday. Experts said that the new arrival of vaccines, coupled with the desperation of returning to a normal life, was the leading cause behind the increase in interest.

Health experts said misinformation regarding purchasing vaccines had discouraged them from getting inoculated in the first place. They blamed the government for not delivering the right information.

Officials of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said information regarding unavailability of vaccines had led people into staying away from getting inoculated. But since they were assured of available vaccines they had started coming to the centres.

More than 10 million people have registered for the Covid-19 vaccine under the government’s inoculation programme, amid a spike in infections and deaths across the country due to the spread of the deadly Delta variant of the virus. 

Describing it as a landmark for Bangladesh, the Department of Information and Communication Technology has said in a statement that some 10,093,593 people completed registration till 11:14pm on Wednesday.

According to the DGHS, 138,161 doses of vaccines were administered across the country on the first day of the campaign, and 178,408 on the second day on Wednesday.

The DGHS wants to inoculate at least 200,000 people a day. It has the capacity of administering 360,000 doses daily.

At present, the government is administering Oxford-AstraZeneca (Covishield), Pfizer-BioNtech, Sinopharm and Moderna vaccines.

Dr Shamshul Haque, member secretary of the Covid-19 vaccine deployment committee, has said that the allotment for the first doses of Pfizer vaccine might end Thursday while the stock of Covishield would have been over by late May had people come to vaccination centres on time.

The health authorities now have a handful of Covishield vaccines at hand.

Bangladesh has so far received 3.1 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, 1.1 million as gift from China, and 2.5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine under the Covax program.

While talking to some of the vaccine recipients at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, it was found that many were students. They said that they wanted to return to the campus to complete their graduation.

Ishrat Jahan, a final-year student of Dhaka University, said the health authorities were saying that vaccine recipients would be in an advantageous position as the severity of the infection would be low.

Meanwhile, Monir Hussain, a Mohammadpur resident, said he was surprised to get the vaccine within a few days of registration.

DGHS spokesperson Prof Dr Robed Amin said once people started taking vaccines, the number of recipients at centres would increase, which was happening right now.

Prof Dr Nazrul Islam said the government had failed to provide information about vaccines in a systematic way. That frustrated people and they turned away from the program.

But as vaccines started to arrive, and as there were indications of more vaccines to come, people's presence at vaccination centres was expected to be higher in the coming days, he added.

"All they want is to return to their normal life. That’s the driving force," the professor observed.

Bangladesh is currently administering the Moderna vaccine in areas under the city corporations, while the Sinopharm vaccine was being given in district and upazila hospitals.